Cockroaches that can be used as spies

Electronic Telegraph ^ | 26/09/2001 | Robert Uhlig, Technology Correspondent

[aculeus]

SCIENTISTS are developing a remote-controlled cockroach that can carry a tiny camera and microphone for spying missions or be used for searching under rubble for disaster victims.

With a microchip surgically implanted in its back and electrodes connected to its brain, scientists can make the cockroach turn left, right, crawl forward or leap backwards.

Isao Shimoyama, of Tokyo University, said that cockroaches were chosen because they were exceptionally hardy and were resistant to poisons and radiation.

He said: "Insects can do many things that people cannot. The potential applications of electronically controlled cockroaches for mankind could be immense."

The team, financed by a £7 million grant from the Japanese government, has bred an army of Perplaneta Americana, the American cockroach, which is the only species large enough and strong enough to carry 20 times its own weight.

The cockroaches' wings and antennae are removed when it is anaesthetised to make room for the electronic back-pack, which, at just over one-tenth of an ounce, is twice as heavy as the insect.

[aculeus]

What happened to Agent 72?

Sorry, Chief. I stepped on him.

[dighton]

Theirs will be a fearful doom.

[Diogenesis]

This was done in the Fifth Element.

[goodieD]

Isn't that why Jesse Jackson is heading for Afghanistan?

[Irma]

There's something about this cockroach story that bugs me.

[aculeus]

archy and mehabital (sp?) of the long gone New York Sun.

He never could handle the shift key.

[cajungirl]

I knew we would have strange bedfellows in this war but this is, well, just too much.

[drstevej]

They won't need a disguise to hang around bin-Laden's bunch.

OK, maybe tiny beards.

[John Farson]

Tech_Index

[TheLion]

What was the movie that had all the mechanical spiders with a deadly needle to inject into their victims? Too bad we don't have thousands of those to release in Afghanistan with a search warrant for Bin Laden's crew. Or how about thousands of bird sized kamakazee thingies that go after their victims. Can you imagine the look on the faces over there!

[dighton]

mehitabel & shirley maclaine lower-case bump

[aruanan]

Cockroaches that can be used as spies

How did they get Hillary to agree to it?

[SamAdams76]

We can call it Operation Kafka.

[Plutarch]

I'm just glad that no one has posted a photograph.

[Romulus]

Palmetto bugs are your friend.

[Diogenesis]

Photo here:

[TheGoodDoc]

"a remote-controlled cockroach that can carry a tiny camera and microphone"

Sorry little buddy, we have had them for years already.

They are called Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Brian Gumbal, and the rest of the DNC propagandist cockroaches, oops I meant network news reporters, sitting in front of their tiny cameras and microphones.

[muleskinner]

A mechanical dragon fly was used in the first Lexx episode - "I Worship His Shadow".

[headsonpikes]

ROTFLMAO!!!

[Neanderthal]

"SCIENTISTS are developing a remote-controlled cockroach that can carry a tiny camera and microphone for spying missions"

Why not just use remote controlled Democrats? Probably cheaper . . .

[A.J.Armitage]

They can also, surprisingly enough, fly planes.

[Annabel_Lee]

Palmetto bugs are your friend.

Yeah sure, that's what they told me the first time I went to Florida!

ME: "OMG..there"s a cockaroach! Let me kill it for you Grandma."
Grandma:Calm down, it's just a palmetto bug!"
ME: "Allright then, let me kill the big, ugly palmetto bug that looks like a cockaroach for you!"

[PatHimself]

No longer a need to ask " Whatsthematta wid you, ya got a bug up yur ass?
Now just turn your TV.

[Romulus]

It's the flying ones that get me. They're evil.

[Askel5]

I was having the CREEPIEST dream not three weeks ago and woke up with a palmetto bug ON MY HEAD!!

Beating the chaise in the halflight of dawn with my pillow ... it just lumbered -- clacking wings mid-air -- to the wall above the computer and stared at me.

I shudder.

You should have seen my face the day (and it was one and the same) I saw my first palmetto bug inside and realized they could fly!! I lost all color, gripped my cocktail and drank deep. We were at my aunt's boss's house and I couldn't scream or anything.

They all thought it normal and shooed it out with a Picayune. I about passed out.

Come a long way since then.

[Romulus]

a palmetto bug ON MY HEAD!!

At long last you're One Of Us.

[VaBthang4]

DAMNIT!!!!!

Yet another example in a longstretching line of evidence displaying human beings tyranically forcing themselves on other forms of life.

P.eople for the E.thical T.reatment of I.nsects wont let this stand!

[TheGoodDoc]

bumpity thanks

[Critter]

Next, I'd like a remote controlled bumble bee, that I can fly around at the beach, and make it land on the hot chicks, sunning their backs, with their tops undone. ;)

[skr]

Palmetto bugs are shoed in our house, right out of their beastly little lives.

The problem with Florida is that all the insects and allergens like this weather, too.

[aculeus]

Buggie bump.

[Orual]

Periplaneta americana:Agent 000-licensed to drive

[Dengar01]

There was a whole episode of the X-Files on cockroaches that had cameras. It was really weird.